


Luminous Eulogy

by 425599167



Series: Truth In Legends [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:13:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23668180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/425599167/pseuds/425599167
Summary: Following the Ghost crew's narrow escape from the Grand Inquisitor on Stygeon Prime, the Empire is set to move its bait to a new location and lure in surviving Jedi.
Series: Truth In Legends [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/507609
Comments: 10
Kudos: 75





	Luminous Eulogy

The Spire of Stygeon Prime had a well-earned reputation for being inescapable. It would normally demand a small army to breach its reinforced walls, much less leave the planet with a live prisoner. Protected by anti-air turrets covering all angles, swarming with stormtroopers, and surrounded on all sides by snowy mountains with no settlements for a hundred kilometers.

Rather than approach via the air in her own ship and get easily detected, Barriss had appropriated her own TIE fighter, including a TIE pilot's uniform and helmet. Carefully and skillfully flying it through the drab grey clouds and snowy winds of Stygeon Prime, Barriss set the fighter down on the upper landing platform where her target shuttle had already landed. It was a modified imperial shuttle, painted black to denote its association with the Inquisitorius. 

Breaching the prison alone was ill-advised. Hijacking the transport which had arrived to bring her target to a new location was more practical, and an opportunity Barriss would not pass up after finally getting a definitive location.

No more being away on another mission. No more receiving word from a sector across the galaxy she couldn't reach in time. No more fear that it's all a trap meant for her, because this particular trap was recently sprung by someone else in her stead.

As the Spire had only been temporarily under the control of the Inquisitorius for this operation, the majority of the guards were common soldiers rather than purge troopers. Stepping out of her TIE, Barriss was approached by a pair of stormtroopers questioning her clearance to use this landing pad.

"I'm an additional escort assigned to this shuttle," she told them, making a point of not using any distinctive hand gestures for the mind trick as she stared through her helmet's lenses at the two purge troopers on each side of the loading ramp. They were looking in her direction, though whether out of caution or genuine suspicion was unclear. Worst case scenario, all she had to do was disconnect one of the breathing tubes hooked up to her helmet and draw her lightsaber from the life support unit attached to her chest.

"You're an additional escort assigned to this shuttle," the stormtroopers repeated, turning around and walking away from her. The purge troopers seemed satisfied, and Barriss spent the next minute pretending to be busy as she stood next to her TIE, staring at a datapad that didn't have anything on it, trying to ignored the freezing wind and light snow blowing around her. TIE pilot outfits were protected from cosmic radiation, not cold weather.

Then the Spire's door opened, with another purge trooper leading a few technicians moving equipment to the shuttle on gravsleds.

There she was.

Luminara Unduli.

Now was the issue of getting past the purge troopers. After so many instances of moving the body around, a mere three purge troopers was deemed sufficient security. Typical mind tricks didn't work on them. Barriss was capable of acting more forcefully if necessary, but that was too unreliable for a situation like this.

Waiting until the technicians had secured the cargo and left the shuttle, Barriss shifted her attention to one of the stormtroopers, specifically his blaster, pulling its trigger from several meters away and causing it to fire wildly. The technicians dropped down to avoid getting hit, the trooper tried to control his weapon to no avail, and the purge troopers were on full alert, crouching to make themselves smaller targets as they approached to help the stormtrooper, allowing Barriss to slip behind them and onto the shuttle. 

"What's going on out there?" the lead pilot asked.

“You noticed a possible mechanical failure with the engines,” Barriss said. “You said you would go out and check.”

“Yeah, we need to go and check the engines,” the copilot said as they both got out of their chairs and headed outside.

Immediately taking the pilot's seat, Barriss watched the security monitor to confirm no one else except the still-walking pilots were aboard the ship. The moment they were off, she sealed the door behind them and completed the startup procedure.

Getting some idea of what was happening, the two of the purge troopers had run around to the front of the shuttle, aiming at her with their rifles. Now in a more secure position, Barriss raised her hand and pulled the blasters out of their hands, then threw them over the edge of the landing pad where they would fall a hundred floors to the mountain below.

With the shuttle to herself, Barriss took it up out of Stygeon Prime’s atmosphere. If more imperial soldiers and pilots below had plans to stop her, the electromagnetic pulse bomb she'd triggered in the cockpit of her discarded TIE would delay any pursuit. Perhaps the damage done to the Spire's electronic systems had released some of the other prisoners and given them a chance at escape. It was all she could hope for, lacking details as to how many prisoners there were, who they were, and who was in which cell.

A few moments later, the hyperspace route plotting was completed, and Barriss was all alone, able to breath as she stared into the bright swirls of hyperspace. Taking a moment to commune with the Force, to feel truly safe from immediate danger, Barriss left the autopilot to run and went to inspect what she'd retrieved from the Empire.

For the first time in over fourteen years, Barriss Offee laid eyes on her master.

Alive, or so it would appear to someone less certain of Luminara's death than Barriss was. The Jedi master was wearing an imperial prison uniform, looking up in despair at the spot Barriss knew the Grand Inquisitor, or one of his subordinates, had stood. Where Barriss now stood, meeting Luminara's eyes for a brief moment.

The holographic recording of her master walked away, merging with what remained of her. The body was desiccated, little more than skin stretched over a skeleton. Hardly anything left of her nose, lips unable to close over her teeth. The tattoos, mementos of past accomplishments over her work up to her attaining the rank of Jedi master, remained on her withered chin.

Barriss’s hands trembled with rage as she stared at her master’s lifeless face until she pressed one hand against the glass covering it, trying to calm herself with the fact that this desecration had reached its conclusion.

* * *

Overlooking the frozen desert of Mirial, Barriss sat down beside the stone slab she set Luminara's body onto, the two of them alone on an island of rock in a landscape of ice crystals and sand, yellow sun shining on them through a clear sky. A cloth was draped over her, one Barriss had emblazoned with the symbol of the Jedi Order. Unlike Barriss, Luminara remained a Jedi to the end. The cloth was the exact size and coloring traditionally used in funerals for members who had fallen, in cases when bodies were not presentable. As ever, when Luminara was involved, Barriss couldn’t accept anything less than perfect from herself.

Over the next several minutes, Barriss went between Luminara and the shuttle, carrying out the logs and sticks she'd gathered from a forest fifty kilometers south, and setting them around the body.

The standard eulogy used when laying fellow Jedi to rest came to Barriss’s mind, proclaiming how they had passed on and were one with the Force. She’d memorized it for this moment. Standing over her master, Barriss’s first thought was how much she didn’t want to speak it.

 _I did not go to these lengths so I could speak someone else’s words,_ she thought, taking a moment to collect her thoughts, letting out a long breath, and beginning.

“There are a thousand things I wish I could’ve said to you. Absolving you of certain wrongs you likely blamed yourself for. Blaming you instead for equally as many wrongs you never would’ve considered on your own. There were so many times I wanted to disagree with you, to tell you how misguided you and the other Jedi were, and I didn’t, until it was too late for us both. This will have to suffice,” Barriss said.

“There were times when I felt as though I’d prefer to forget you. Everything about you made me feel so guilty and worthless. I did everything you wanted, or what I believed you wanted, and it wasn’t enough. It never would be.”

“Ahsoka and I are doing all we can against the Empire, and as before, it feels as though nothing is enough. We aren’t alone in such feelings. That’s why the inquisitors found you to be such alluring bait. As flawed as you were, you conveyed a sense of control. It seemed as though you knew what should be done in any situation. Even when you didn’t. As acutely aware as I am of how illusive that image was, I was the first person to see how comforting it could be.”

“Undoubtedly, you would’ve preferred I let you go. To not remain attached to you, to not hold onto these feelings of grief. I apologize, Luminara, but you’re going to have to tolerate one final act of disobedience from your wayward apprentice. You defined me, and I will not forget or ignore that, not the joy nor the pain you brought me.”

Grievances thus aired, Barriss sat down on the flat rock, practically collapsing with relief.

“I promise I won’t allow you to have died in vain,” said Barriss. “I love you, my master. I am certain you knew.”

Everything was prepared. Barriss gathered some of the smaller, kindling-sized pieces onto one thick log, then ignited her orange lightsaber and thrust it down into the wood, holding the blade in place until it burned in earnest. She did the same at five other spots around the body until the flames spread and a column of smoke rose into the sky. A dust storm was forming in the distance, and soon its winds would reach this spot and return Luminara to the cold desert.


End file.
